


Chill

by thebasement_archivist



Category: The X-Files
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1998-07-31
Updated: 1998-07-31
Packaged: 2018-11-21 01:12:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11346888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thebasement_archivist/pseuds/thebasement_archivist
Summary: Mulder has to deal with some difficult news.





	Chill

**Author's Note:**

> Note from alice ttlg, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [The Basement](http://fanlore.org/wiki/The_Basement), which moved to the AO3 to ensure the stories are always available and so that authors may have complete control of their own works. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in June 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [The Basement's collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/thebasement/profile).

 

Chill by Colleen C. Bailey

CHILL  
by Colleen C. Bailey

OK, I wrote this for Nicci. I doubt it was what she intended when she thought up the challenge, but this is what came out.

Implied m/m relationship

* * *

He did not want to believe.

When the phone call had come in, he had not believed.

When Skinner handed him the police report as he strode down the brightly-lit hallway of the hospital, he had not believed.

When Scully met him at the morgue, tired and tight-lipped and refusing to meet his eyes, he had not believed.

All his wild theories, his intuitive leaps, his crazy inversions of logic, they all worked to buoy up his disbelief, to maintain the illusion that possibly the reports were fakes, perhaps the evidence was inconclusive, maybe they were wrong.

They weren't.

Scully hovered by his side, concerned. "I've already ID'ed the body, Mulder. There was no next of kin listed, so the county will take care of the rest in the morning."

He stood next to the gurney, undeterred. Of course there was no next of kin. There was no next of anything. When he disappeared, it had been without a trace - no family, no school records, none of the usual footprints that people leave behind as they tread their path through life. Even his carefully-scrutinized FBI personnel files led from one dead-end to another. Not only was he gone, it was as if he'd never been. Except for the excruciatingly-accurate memories.

He laid his left hand on the bag, near the zipper, not quite brave enough yet to finger the cold metal tab, to unlock the row of shiny steel teeth that had swallowed his heart without chewing. The black plastic gave slightly beneath his fingertips, he could feel the inert flesh beneath, the contour of a bone beneath the slick surface (clavicle, his analytical mind whispered), and his memory animated the image, provided him with a larger-than-life playback of fingers sliding across warm skin, the white tracks of nails drawn sharply along the angles of the neck to delicately trace the ear, only to be replaced by gentle teeth.

"Mulder?" He blinked, closed his mouth and looked down at her, always present, always distant, even when they embraced she pushed him away, I'm fine Mulder, let's go Mulder, take me home Mulder, but you're not invited inside. Her hand on his wrist felt wrong, too small, too feminine, and he enlarged it in his imagination, added a dusting of dark hairs to the arm and a man's strength to the grip.

I'm in shock, he thought mildly. He looked at his hand on the table, and imagined it sinking slowly into the unyielding body beneath. I'm fine, Scully. Then he remembered to inhale. "I'm fine, Scully."

She drew breath, and the air pressure dropped. "Mulder, you knew this would happen someday. He was either on the take or on the run from everyone we know, and quite possibly some we don't." She squeezed his arm and leaned in close, an offer he knew she would never quite make. The smell of sweat, delicately scented, rose from her neck, and he remembered the first taste of his skin. "We may never know the answers now, but at least we can put some questions to rest." He watched her hair ripple in the dead fluorescent light as she glanced at the shrouded, anonymous form beneath his fingers. "Let's go."

He imagined his pulse beating in his icy, still-sinking hand, racing in time with the loudly-ticking clock. It was 2:37 am, and he knew exactly which shows were playing on every cable channel in the DC area, but he couldn't remember his father's birthdate. "Give me a minute here. Alone," he told her questioning look. She pursed her lips tightly (what would the kiss be like? his analytical mind whispered, and the answer came back, Nothing like...his), then nodded and withdrew.

He was alone. Except, of course, for Krycek.

The End


End file.
